The Shea Moisture Ad and The Black Girl Magic Response

Shea Moisture can I talk to you, about you, with you for a minute? Either way, it’s happening.

Shea Moisture is a staple, I repeat a staple, hair-care brand among Black women, particularly with natural hair. If you were to search “shea moisture review” on Youtube over 240,000 results will appear. In other words, you can’t be natural and have never heard of a Shea Moisture product at least once, once.

This past weekend I bought the restorative conditioner. I felt my hair growth plateaued, so, new products and a regimen were much needed. I used the conditioner as a pre-poo and the results left me woke. My hair felt so soft the conditioner instantly became a permanent step in future wash day.

In 24 hours, Shea Moisture went from waking me up to putting my back to sleep. Let me explain.

Black women–Black dollars–are the BACKBONE to this company’s success. Black women are the majority customers, brand ambassadors, and most importantly, the inspiration behind the entire line. Now I understand Shea Moisture wants to expand their reach, understandable. But what’s not understandable is masking the women who have made Shea Moisture to appeal to another type of customer. You don’t bite the hands that have fed you.

Let me be very clear: someone ridiculed for having red hair color is incomparable to someone ridiculed for having a completely different grade of hair. It shouldn’t even be in the same train of thought. And forcing these two opposites to attract women together because of experienced “hair hate” and “hair shaming” is blatant ignorance and you should know better. You are better than that. Or are you?

The exact reason of Shea Moisture’s creation was to give women whose hair texture plays the antagonist in the protagonist’s story of European Beauty: Good Versus Bad some hope. So I ask again, what is wrong with a hair-care line created, designed, and packaged for Black women and men. Is it that we no longer make you happy? Is it not enough that your products have found a home in our bins and cabinets, on our shelves or bathroom sinks? Is it not enough Shea Moisture that your reputation as the holy grail of natural hair care lines rests on the nontraditional—yet free—marketing method word-of-mouth? Is it not enough that the Black dollars, which have lined the company’s pockets, now need to be white? Shea Moisture, I ask you all this to find the point in your new “Break free from hair hate” commercial.

Granted there is an ugly stigma associated with people who have red hair, from the moniker “ginger(s)” to the idiom “red-headed stepchild”. I get it: everyone can’t be a blonde, brunette, jet black, or a blonde. It’s a hard life to live. But you know what’s a bit harder? Living in a society where your natural hair—in all of its kinkified glory—is at the bottom of the beauty totem pole. I’m sure many women of color wish her only hair esteem was whether to simply dye her hair in contrast to chemically changing the complete texture of her hair. So no, I prefer to “break free from hair hate” with women whose hair actually look like mines, more than a little bit.

You see, the Black woman in your commercial—the only woman of color—is gorgeous, but her hair represents a small fraction of hair types within our race; she looks a strong 3A. She also looks biracial, which actually has a lot more meaning in the outrage than just hating to be hating. I don’t want to take away value from the model woman’s story of being teased as a child for her hair, finding paper balls tangled in her hair, and coming to accept the beauty of her hair. However, I do wonder what was the demographic of her grade school classroom. Maybe I’m going a little too deep or maybe your marketing and creative team didn’t go deep enough. Ask Pepsi. Black women, Pepsi, and Shea Moisture Curl Enhancing Smoothie in the same room are imagery that very may so not make it past a mere thought. All thanks to terrible, terrible, terrible marketing, which all could have been avoided if someone spoke up to say, “This may not be received well.” Now here you are doing damage control, scrambling to keep the customers who were only featured in the one-minute commercial at the end. I’m positive that pinned tweet was pinned April 24, 2017, and not on the originally tweeted date September 14, 2017.

Now have I been a customer for years? Nope. But I have relatives and friends whom upon their transition to the natural side dumped your products in their shopping cart. There were times I found myself sifting through my sister’s or roommate’s inventory and chose one of your products before I eventually bought my own. So no, I don’t need to be down with the cause for years to see that selling yourself out might of took a matter of minutes.

Take a look around Shea, can I call you Shea? Hair care lines that once excluded US are now including US. Where do you think TRESemme’s “reverse system” two-step process of condition first then shampoo later came from? When were Argan oil, coconut oil, castor oil, almond oil, etc. ever the main ingredient and on the front of the bottle with Dove, Pantene, Suave, and L’Oreal? Oils are in, fruits are out. What group do you think influenced those brands to incorporate ingredients that are principal nutrients for natural hair growth? Well if you’re thinking it’s the three women who wondered what to do with their already #straighthair #easytomaintainhair #washeverydayhair you are sadly mistaken, misguided and misinformed.

Shea, I don’t want to see you go from the front of the shelf to the back. I don’t want to see you go from retail end-cap display to clearance cart (you know the cart of I’m talking about). I don’t want to see your lack of diversity in ads result in your demise. But I do want to see some loyalty. Or would you prefer to see your name on the list of brands that lost their identity?

Now before you think Black women are just being selfish and nagging to nag, I leave you with this: hair-straightener formulas (relaxers) were created to approve our appearance; natural hair care products were created for US to accept our appearance.

2 Comments

Good post. I hope Shea Moisture is taking it all in and that they will make the needed changes. More than words companies understand the color green so if they start loosing market share they’ll definitely change their tune. #BLMgirl

That last sentence was everything! Great post. Love reading all these different perspectives on this debacle. Almost makes me wanna edit mine to add all the other stuff I wanted to say lol but you ladies are filling in the gaps nicely! 😉
#BLMGirl

The Blogger

I guess if I had to shorten it, I'm the MOE. The melaninated, opinionated and educated blogger. Bitchin' about those bitchin' and investigating "alternative facts". When I'm not doing that, I'm trying to be a pescatarian, enjoy life and shop while leaving #BlackGirlMagic in the sand. Respeck my name.